First Look at How Cartoon Film Will Rework Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

Batman fans have seen Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, but true-schoolers remain impatient for the two-part animated feature adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns. And now they’ve finally got a peek at what Frank Miller’s epochal comic looks like wrapped in its new cartoon skin.

They’ll be rewarded with a good look at the comic’s iconic cover, which was penciled by Miller, inked by Klaus Janson and colored by Lynn Varley. Its shadowed Batman and sizzling lightning appear in Warner Bros.’ first official clip (above) from the Batman: The Dark Knight Returns animated film duology, the first installment of which arrives Sept. 25 on DVD, Blu-ray and download.

It’s a direct quote for Bat geeks who remember how broadly Miller’s blockbuster four-issue revision of the previously campy superhero electrified culture and media in 1986.

The on-screen cops are like those of us who’ve been nervously waiting since the late ’80s for a film based on Miller’s legendary comic. The fact that it has finally arrived as a cartoon, starring RoboCop‘s Peter Weller and directed by Man of Steel storyboarder Jay Oliva, is incidental. The format will not stop us from getting our Dark nerd on, wherever it leads.

On that note, the first clip doesn’t really take the Dark Knight anywhere new, especially for those who have seen Nolan’s operatic tech-noir trilogy. After all, Nolan’s creaking hero (played by Christian Bale, the second-best Batman ever) is based on Miller’s version of the old-timer, a costumed vigilante so hopping mad at the young mutants soiling Gotham’s lawns that he comes out of retirement to go toe-to-toe with them (as well as Two-Face, Joker and even Superman).

So pardon us Bat geeks while we look forward to the The Dark Knight Returns’ long-waited jump to moving pictures. Let’s hope that the wait was worth it.

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